Do you speak pet?

According to a recent AP article and Petside.com poll, 67 percent of pet parents say they understand their animals’ barks, purrs and chirps.

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What did you say?

Stephen King, 63, a retired chemist from Kempner, Texas, says he understands his dog Dagny’s repertoire of angry, eager, sad, content and other feeling-filled barks. “I speak to her on limited subjects, and she does the same with me…Common sense works 98 percent of the time,” he says.

King is among the one-fifth of pet people who claim that they and their animals understand each others’ sounds completely. Older and lower-income people are especially likely to say they and their pets get the same message.

Perhaps not surprisingly, men are twice as likely as women to say they and their pets are clueless about what each is saying to the other.

Dog people prevail (at least in the confidence department) over their kitty-loving counterparts when it comes to claims of successfully speaking to their animals: three in 10 dog parents think that their pets are baffled when they speak to them, compared with nearly half of cat people.

But interestingly, more people appear to be fluent in meows than in barks. Twenty-five percent say they completely understand their cats compared with just 16 percent of those who claim to be totally fluent in barks.

Jane Starring, of Barrington, R.I., says she and her family are confounded by their eight-year-old cat, Flannel, who often chases people about the house meowing. “We’re not sure we’re making much progress understanding him,” says Starring. “I don’t know what his point is.”

Do you understand your pet? What do you talk about? Are you more fluent in barks or meows?